Strange Sinema 83: Bizarre Cinema Histories - Fri. Dec. 5th - 8PM

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 83: Bizarre Cinema Histories,
a monthly screeningof new finds,
old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ collection of over 50,000
film prints. Tonight we present another offbeat look at the origins and bizarre
expressions of cinema through historical inventions, experimental innovations
and hand-made films throughout the ages. We start off with a fascinating
documentary The Origins of the Motion Picture (1955) examining cinema
history from Leonardo de Vinci to Thomas Edison featuring oddities such as the
Thaumatrope, the Phenakistiscope, Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope and more. We follow
with the early cinema experiments of Georges Méliès in excerpts from Baron Munchausen’s
Hallucinations (1911) and Tex Avery's Daffy Duck in Hollywood (1938)
where our duckster editer makes movie mayhem by creating a masterpiece using
stock footage to enrage his boss! Witness Camera Magic (1943), a
rare curio by notorious oddball photographer Arthur “Weegee” Felig
demonstrating a variety of camera techniques used to produce special effects.
Moving on to the 70s, we take a cue from Stan Brakhage, Len Lye, and other
avant-garde film makers in Michael and Mimi Warshaw’s How to Make a Movie Without a
Camera (1972) and Yvonne Andersen’s Let’s Make a Film (1971), films
which encourage kids to make beautiful movies by scratching and drawing
directly on film and animating films using hinged cut-outs, clay, toys, painted
film and live action.Another rare doc Richter
on Film (1972) profiles Dadaist and abstract/avant garde filmmaker Hans
Richter as he talks about his ground-breaking experimental films of the 1920's.
Also included are Underground Film (1970), an exploration into ‘underground’ film
through the eyes (and films) of California experimental filmmaker Chick Strand;
Bombay
Movies (1977), an inside look at the wild and extravagant world of
Bollywood films in the 1970s; and L’Etoile de Mer or The Star of the Sea (1928),
Man Ray’s surreal quasi-narrative of lust, sex, and thwarted desires. Plus! Rare avant garde shorts and
excerpts.

This
fascinating documentary describes the events leading to the perfection of
motion pictures, and examines the technological development, from the theories
of Leonardo Da Vinci to the inventions of Thomas Edison. The film examines
reliefs on Indian temple walls, DaVinci’s Camera Obscura, the Magic Lantern,
the many facets of moving image inventions from the Thaumatrope, or “wonder
turner”, the Phenakistiscope, Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope, the Zoetrope,
Edison’s, Kinetograph and many more evolutionary moving image projection
devices. Produced by the U.S. Navy in collaboration with The Library of
Congress, The Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives, Thomas Alva
Edison Foundation and the George Eastman House of Photography.

Excerpts from Baron Munchausen’s Hallucinations (B+W,
1911)

Georges Méliès was the magician par excellence of the early cinema,
innovating constantly to bring cinema to its full expressive potential. In his
rarely-seen version of Baron Munchausen, Méliès takes on the fantasies of the
great traveling Baron, using new camera tricks and exquisite sets to bring the
stories to life.

Daffy Duck in Hollywood (B+W, 1938, Tex Avery)

Watch Daffy Duck wreak havoc on a movie set by cutting and
splicing together various clips into finished product of a movie contains
nothing but newsreel titles and clips surrealist style. An anarchistic and
avant garde masterpiece!

Camera Magic (B+W, 1943)

This rare curio by notorious oddball
photographer Arthur “Weegee” Felig demonstrates a variety of camera techniques
used to produce special effects with an ordinary 16mm motion picture camera
without employing special equipment. A man moves to embrace a woman and we
watch her vanish. On the beach a woman smiles while her decapitated head lies
next to her.More offbeat scenes
demonstrate tips and tricks for the amateur and professional alike. Wacky,
weird and nothing like it in the entire Castle film collection this came
from!

How to Make a Movie Without a Camera (Color,
1972)

Taking a cue from Stan Brakhage, Len Lye, and other avant-garde film
makers, Michael and Mimi Warshaw encourage kids to make beautiful movies by
scratching and drawing directly on film. Using just these simple techniques and
a catchy soundtrack, the Warshaws show that it doesn’t take a big studio budget
or an all-star cast to craft a movie that makes more sense than Inception.

“Michael and Mimi Warshaw’s film is a non-stop sampling of
the wonders of found footage and hand-made movie techniques.The film incorporates techniques such as
scratching, acetate inks, food coloring, felt tip pens, bleaching, rub-ons, and
various stock or found footage elements creating an instructional yet
experimental film.Famed avant garde
filmmakers such as Len Lye, Stan Brakhage, and dadist Hans Richter created
entire bodies of innovative, abstract cameraless film using direct physical
techniques such as these.”

Richter on Film (Color, 1972)

The brilliant painter, Dadaist and abstract/avant garde
filmmaker Hans Richter talks about his experimental films of the 1920's.
Excerpts from Rhythm 2 (1921), Race Symphony (1928), and Ghosts Before
Breakfast (1927) are included. Richter moved from Switzerland to the United
States in 1940 and taught in the Institute of Film Techniques at the City
College of New York.

While living in New York, Richter directed two feature
films, Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) and 8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8
Movements (1957) in collaboration with Max Ernst, Jean Cocteau, Paul Bowles,
Fernand Léger, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, and others. In 1957, he
finished a film entitled Dadascope with original poems and prose spoken by
their creators: Hans Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Raoul Hausmann, Richard Huelsenbeck,
and Kurt Schwitters. Richter was also the author of a first-hand account of the
Dada movement titled Dada: Art and Anti-Art which also included his reflections
on the emerging Neo-Dada artworks.

Underground Film (Color, 1970)

An exploration into ‘underground’ film through the eyes
(and films) of California experimental filmmaker, Chick Strand, this
documentary gives a close look into the life and work of one of the west
coast’s (and Bay Area’s) most innovative independent filmmakers.Included among the interviews and footage of
Strand working is a full-length version of her film, Anselmo, shot in Mexico in
1967.Lush color, layered images and
intimate cinematography create an inimitable portrait of a musician friend and
a tuba in Anselmo. Working in 16mm and Super 8mm, Chick Strand was one of a
group of Bay Area filmmakers including Bruce Baillie, Gunvor Nelson, Dorothy
Wiley, and Robert Nelson (to name a few) who established Canyon Cinema, San
Francisco Cinematheque, and self published a journal of writings from and on
filmmakers working in the area in the ‘60s and ‘70s.These filmmakers’ film work and efforts
established a unique Bay Area community of distribution and exhibition for
local film artists and have had an indelible impact on West Coast experimental
and independent film aesthetics.

Bombay Movies (Color, 1977)

The entire output of the American
film industry is the merest trickle in comparison with India, where the
original Moguls release many times more films each year than the Americans can
ever dream of. Studios in Bombay’s Hollywood, Bollywood, churn out a smorgasbord
of musicals and exploitation films on a daily basis, serving the needs of
India’s vast moviegoing public. Follow mega-star Vinod Khanna as he introduces
American audiences to cinema, Indian-style.

L’Etoile de Mer or The Star of the Sea (B+W,
1928)

Man Ray’s surreal, dreamlike interpretation of a poem by
Robert Desnos takes the viewer through a quasi-narrative of lust, sex, and
thwarted desires (and star fish, or course).Using superimpositions, multiple exposures, dramatic set ups, and image-altering
filters, Man Ray distorts and obscures his images to create his own unique
visual poetry.

Let’s Make a Film (Color, 1971) Photographed by Yvonne Andersen with narration by Dominic Falcone Shows how children between the ages of five and eighteen, working at the Yellow Ball Workshop, make animated films using hinged cut-outs, clay, toys, painted film, constructed forms, and live action. Follows one child through the entire process of making a short animated film with 16mm Bolex Camera on a tripod, and using rewinders and viewer as editing tools.

Curator's Biography:

Stephen Parr’s previous programs have explored the
erotic underbelly of sex-in-cinema (The Subject is Sex), the offbeat and
bizarre (Oddities Beyond Belief), the pervasive effects of propaganda (Historical/Hysterical?) and
oddities from his archives (Strange Sinema). He is the director of
Oddball Film+Video and the San Francisco Media Archive (www.sfm.org), a non
profit archive that preserves culturally significant films. He is a co-founder
of Other Cinema DVD and a member of the Association of Moving Archivists (AMIA)
where he is a frequent presenter.

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is the film component
of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual
film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The
Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for
Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our
collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational
films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news
out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely
screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural
documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the
largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private
collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of
offbeat cinema.